CHAPTER III
The Significance of the Divine Week
and its Seven Days

The elements are four mothers,

and they are the daughters of the world of (the heavenly) orbs.

We are born out of them, so our (ultimate, spiritual) being

is in the world of (spiritual) principles (arkan) and (spiritual) rulers.

The God has made our sustenance from the ears of grain (sanabil),[47]

from the influence of Sunbula (Virgo),[48] without sharing.[49]

And He also multiplied our reward by 'the seven ears of grain',

as it was said in a saying (2:261) by One Who does not lie.[50]

So our time (zaman) is seven thousands (of years),

that come through the recurrence of (moments) of radiance and intense darkness.

So see, with your intellect, seven in seven,

from seven that are not kings. (explained at the end of section 1 below)

[I.292.31-293.3]

As Ibn Arabi suggests in this cryptic opening poem of his key cosmological chapter 60 of the Futuhat, although we encounter many visible, apparent 'days' due to the rotation of the earth around its axis, which all appear to be similar to each other, ultimately we can reduce them to only seven distinctive Days[51] depending on the kinds of events that happen in them. Ibn Arabi argues that in each Day of the seven Days of the (actual, cosmic) 'Week', Allah orders the heavenly orbs to act in a special unique manner that causes unique events and motions to appear in the entire cosmos. However, the seven Days of these divine, creative 'events' or 'tasks' (shu un) are intertwined with our normal days of the apparent earthly week in a special manner that we shall explain in the coming chapter and that is why we see multiple events appearing every day.

In various sections of the Futuhat, Ibn Arabi goes on to explain the importance of the divine 'Week' (usbu ) and the different meanings of the seven Days of that Week, which are rooted in the meanings of the Arabic terms for each of those Days, running from 'the First' (al-ahad, corresponding to Sunday) to 'the Day of rest' (al-sabt, corresponding to Saturday). He also shows that Saturday is therefore the 'Day of eternity' (yawm al-abad) and that all the Days of the Week of creation, including Saturday itself, are actually occurring on this 'last' Day of eternity (al-sabt). These distinctive conceptions can only be fully understood after investigating Ibn Arabi's view of the actual flow of time, which we shall explain in the following chapter; but in this chapter we shall first explain the origin and the meaning of these seven Days of the divine creative Week, why they have to be seven and not more or less, and what is the significance of each Day.

Also in this chapter we shall explain Ibn Arabi's unique understanding of the process of creation of the world by Allah 'in six Days', from Sunday to Friday. He explains that the creation of the world in this Week corresponds to the creation of the 'six directions' of space (in six Days, from Sunday to Friday) and then the appearance of this creation in time on Saturday (the Day of eternity). In this way the Week is indeed the unit of the space-time container of the world or also 'the Age' as we explained in section II.19. This distinctive conception of the unification of space and time, symbolically expressed in Ibn Arabi's understanding of the seven Days of creation, adds an essential dimension to Relativity's concept of space and time; as a result, for the first time in astronomy, the 'Week' will itself have a clear and essential cosmological significance.